"Well," I said, "under the circumstances I shall go with you,
not because you threaten me, but because your poor wife and six
children are threatened with starvation."

"Good!" he said. "And now all you have to do is to think of
what the excuse you will give my lady boss will be."

With that he lay back against the cushions and waited. He
seemed to feel that the matter did not concern him any more, and
that the rest of it lay with me.

"Go ahead!" I said to him. "I have no idea what I shall tell
your mistress, but since I have lost the last train I must try to
catch the two o'clock trolley car to Westeote, and I do not wish
to spend any more time than necessary on this business. Make all
the haste possible, and as we go I shall think what I will say
when we get there."

The driver got out and took his seat and started the car. I was
worried, indeed, my dear. I tried to think of something plausible
to tell the young man's employer; something that would have an
air of self-proof, when suddenly I remembered the half-filled
nursing-bottle and the three auburn-red curls. Why should I not
tell the lady that a poor mother, while proceeding down Fifth
Avenue from her scrub-woman job, had been taken suddenly ill, and
that I, being near, had insisted that this automobile help me
convey the woman to her home, which we found, alas! to be in the
farthest districts of Brooklyn? Then I would produce the three
auburn-red curls and the half-filled nursing-bottle as having
been left in the automobile by the woman, and this proof would